RAIN…

I am ambivalent with regards to my emotions regarding the rain. I hate rainy days during work because of the wet sensation that sticks to your skin like a second skin that causes long hours of discomfort…and not to mention the fact that if I was unlucky, I’d get a cold after –and colds are hateful. On the other hand, from a poet’s standpoint, based on the virtue of romantic ideas – nothing beats the rain…

It’s a double edged sword. As a student, I prayed for it to be strong when it came because it usually meant no classes. And rain meant we didn’t go to the garden to till the soil. We had the day to ourselves curled up in our rooms and our blankets – and for me, it meant that I was in the company of my beloved books. But it was hated when it was not strong enough and that meant donning our ‘kapotes’ to walk the long road to school shivering from the cold and suffering the long day hearing the soft pitter-patter of raindrops against the corrugated roof lulling us to sleep and earning the ire of our teachers.

As I grew older, I started hating it more… Moving to the city of Baguio meant that rain caused the water to form dark puddles in the sidewalks and getting splashed with dirty sewage; wet shoes and bad colds… and in college it meant having to brave heavy gale winds because PAGASA is always getting the storm signal number wrong and our SUV riding university president did not suspend classes until he got wet even when all the students were soaked through and through.

And then in my twenties, I hated it even more… it caused too many landslides in the northern part of the country – causing so many tragedies that continues to haunt my friends and the hardy people up north… We even got flooded in Baguio which is rather unimaginable – a mountain city getting flooded…

But despite all these, I also love the rain.

Like the popular song with the same title… it is often best to do one’s crying in the rain. And I cried a few times in the rain…

Walking out when one is sad into the rain and letting it soak through all your clothes while nursing a hurting heart is therapeutic. You can sob and cry gallons of tears and no one would be none the wiser. Granted that some people will look at you funny and some will actually see that you are crying, many will just assume you’re just some fool who’s left his umbrella behind. And that meant you can cry yourself out.

And nothing beats running in the rain when you are happy, hearing the splash of your feet striking the surface of water pools and not minding it at all. To grin like a fool while raindrops tall like rivulets down your flushed face… those are the moments instead when you love the rain…

And who can forget the fun we had as children playing in the rain, going under rain gutters to dare one another to get under the downpour. To run like crazy in the cold playing tag and splashing each other while laughing to our hearts contents…

And the rain did make plants grow and for a person like me who’s spent his early childhood going to the farm, there is no better friend than the early rains that soak into the soil causing the seeds to finally wake up from their slumber and sprout their green leaves gingerly upwards to worship the sun. And corn on the cob is best savored during the rainy season – nothing could ever beat that…

I grew up, of course and now I just reached my thirties. Watching the rain behind a window as it pours outside is a melancholic moment. It is a sad reminder for me that I am still alone and now that the tears don’t come as easily, the rains are my substitute.

The sky cries again… I always write that on my Facebook and Twitter accounts… my way of saying that I am sad inside and it is the sky that does my crying for me. I cannot go and soak in the rain now… I hide behind closed windows and a cup of coffee… but the sky cries again, indeed…

How many more rains will pass me on my lifetime? How many more storms will I have to weather? Will I dance in the rain or will I curse it more?

Those are the questions that remain…

The Sky Cries again…

By Jani Domawa

The rain falls with a soft cadence against the window pane

I watch it snake behind the glass to pool against the sides

Wistfully, my eyes follow its trail –

Mesmerized, I watch the raindrops merge –

And fall…

Life is pretty amazing…

Full of things unexpected –

Full of pain…

Of laughter…

Our souls clash in an endless dance

We cast ourselves against each other –

Like the waves forever crashing on the shore…

Memories lie jumbled in the rocks and sand

Where jagged point of fears are smoothed by time

Then broken once more –

And so the rain continues to fall –

From the hidden wounds created, the sky bleeds

Gingerly at first, the raindrops fall –

Drizzles into fine mist, and then –

Like one’s raging emotions kept inside –

The trickle becomes a torrent that pours down

And washes everything away…

Time will roll on and pass us by…

Our journey will move and go far, far ahead…

Life will happen –

And through it all…

The sky cries again…